How To Drown Sweetly
by Ringbearingreasergal
Summary: "You don't see a single ounce of beauty in you, do you, Terra?"  Reno asked incredulously.  "You don't see a thing worth forgiving.  I watched you for half an hour and I knew I was watching a HERO stand at the horizon." One-shot.


**Hello all, here's a Ring-Shot I started a while ago. I haven't done anything fanfiction oriented for awhile so it was kinda nice to get back into the swing of things. I had fun with the characters, and the prose was very much inspired by Savage Garden's _'You Can Still Be Free'_. Without further ado:**

**How To Drown Sweetly**

Although a young woman stood in the atmosphere a good 15 yards away, Reno felt alone on the sandy cliffs that he stood on, surreptitiously enough behind a few leafy olive trees. It was border lined creepy, watching this girl, but hey—it was the job. He'd been watching her for about a half hour now, standing on the edge of the cliff. She was tall, thin, with sweeping yellow hair that drifted back and forth around her back and shoulders with the cool breeze. She wore thigh-twisting black shorts and a lime green t-shirt with brown, tightly-tied hiking boots and bulky gloves. He knew this because nearly the whole time he'd been watching her, she stood the same. Feet shoulder-length apart, shoulders squared, arms at her sides. The strong poise of a strong person. Maybe.

An especially strong gust of sea wind sent a bouquet of autumn leaves spiraling from Reno's tree across the sand toward the girl. A few strands of carmine-colored hair sifted from the loose ponytail that Reno kept his 'mane' in. Reno curiously glanced at his watch. Five o'clock, and the golden daylight moved in slow motion. The girl wasn't doing a thing. Reno took a deep breath and stepped out from behind his tree.

"Shouldn't you be in school?" He asked casually. The teenager jumped and whirled around, her impossibly big and blue eyes widened in the surprise of the disturbed peace.

"Yeah, but I stayed home because my mom was sick and I—"

Reno halted the girls' stuttering excuses quickly. "Chill out, kid. It's five o' clock PM. And _Sunday_." The girl took a moment to register this before her previously arched shoulders slumped.

"Oh," she said softly. "Right." Reno could feel her eyes evaluating him. A 26-year-old man in a suit with celery green eyes, a narrow, pale face, a crimson mullet ponytail. He hoped the mullet thing didn't come off as too creeper. "Who are you?" She finally asked.

"Reno—Turk Commander for ShinRa Incorp," he said, sticking out his hand. Her own hands were encased in brown leather. He put his hand down. "And yourself?" The girl chewed at nonexistent, pale lips.

"ShinRa…I've heard of you…aren't you…government?" She asked timidly. Reno smirked.

"Does that bother you?" He asked, stretching and gazing at the sparkling horizon. The girl seemed to shrink into herself—odd thing. She'd seemed so poised before.

"No," she said. "But why are you here? You don't _look_ like government. How long were you there? Were you watching me?"

Reno nodded, shaggy bangs crossing his eyes. "A half hour. You seemed quite contemplative. How long had you been there?"

"Why are you watching me?" Her eyes narrowed now, suspicion crackling in her face. "What is this about?" She demanded.

"Easy, there," Reno said. "I don't even know your name."

"I bet you do," she said. "Don't lie to me."

"Okay, okay, Terra Melcov. You're a smart kid. I apologize. I'm here to have you report in. There are a couple of rumors going on about you, and I'm supposed to investigate, yadda yadda. Basically you need to sign a registration form with the city and we'll take it back to the Prez so that if there's an emergency—"

"I don't plan on being here long enough to witness or cause an emergency," the 15 year old murmured, crossing her arms across her chest. "I don't see why I have to sign anything."

"How long have you been standing here?" Reno asked again.

"Since 12:30." She responded. Reno gaped at the girl.

"Four and a half hours? I can barely handle sitting at the TV for four and a half hours let alone standing watching nothing for that long."

"Is this nothing to you?" She asked sharply. Reno took a second look at the sea's crescendo. She had a point. He watched this girl, this very young girl, wipe an arm across her face to hide a shaft of weariness and vulnerability.

Reno took a second look at his clipboard and tossed it on the ground, taking a seat on the sand in front of the cliffs. It could wait. Terra watched him, a bit of sad curiosity in her face.

"You lonely or something?" She asked. He shook his head, a smile on his face.

"Nah. Just never been good with formalities. Care to sit?" He asked. She obliged him. They watched the sun for a bit.

"This doesn't seem too protocol," Terra remarked. Reno shrugged.

"It's not."

She sat her knees to her chest, her arms stretched around them, lemon hair swirling around her. Her eyes were nowhere near Reno or the city. "So what happens if I don't sign your papers?" She asked.

"I'm ordered to arrest you. I know, I know," Reno said wistfully, leaning his elbow on the ground. "The job pays, though." He glanced at her. "I'm not going to, though."

She looked at him, startled. "Why not?" She asked. Reno smiled at her. She was a sweetheart, he could tell that from the get-go.

"I think I can get away with it, one way or another," he said. "I'm curious. Why were you standing here for five hours?" He asked. A beat, and she took a deep breath.

"Just thinking," she said. "Watching."

"That's a helluva lot of thinking for a fifteen-year-old," Reno said. "Just saying."

"When you're a fifteen-year-old like me, you might take some down time yourself," she said. "You don't know me." Reno bit his lip at the irony of her last statement.

"You're right. I don't. Hey, welcome to the area. I know you haven't been here long," he said. A hint of a dry, faint smile sketched at her thin lips.

"Thanks," she said. "This isn't my first time here, though. I lived around here as a kid with my mom. I liked it," she said.

"Oh yeah?" Reno mused, encouraging her to share.

"Yeah," she smiled. "Mom used to take me up here, right where we are now and we used to build sandcastles with little broken plastic shovels and buckets and such…little things we'd find coasting. It was fun. We got creative with those things."

"Where's your mom now?" Reno asked. It wasn't mandatory to have parents accompany such minors, and Reno hadn't thought to ask about parents before now. Terra's blue eyes turned stormy.

"Gone," she said softly, and shuddered. "She's gone."

"I'm sorry," Reno said, a tenderness springing in his heart for the girl.

"No," she said, swallowing and shaking her head. "No, I'm sorry." Reno had heard of people like Terra before. People who found themselves with powers beyond elemental control. They were few and far between, but they were there. And all of the ones that Reno had heard of had a story with them. Maybe Terra's story lay with her mother.

"You by yourself for now?" He asked. "You have any friends you're staying with or something?" He asked.

"Yeah," Terra said, a little too quickly. "Yeah I have a friend. He…he's helped me more than I can ever repay him for."

"Why aren't you with him now then?" Reno asked.

"What's with all the questions?" She asked. "You're a stranger, why should I even be talking to you right now?" She asked. Reno cocked an eyebrow.

"You want me to leave?" He asked. Tears welled in Terra's eyes.

"No," she said, and her voice broke. Silently, Terra began to cry. Reno didn't quite know what was going on, but he had a suspicion that if he acknowledged the fact, he'd get his head verbally bitten off, so instead he just watched with a sad, patient smile on his face as she struggled to retain a steady breath pattern and hold in tiny, quaking sobs.

"I think your friend—if he's really your friend—should be here right now," Reno said. Terra shook her head, shucking off her gloves and wiping at tears with pale hands.

"Ah…no he shouldn't," she sniffed, brushing the hair away from her eyes. "I ran away. He's not coming after me."

"Why not? You got in a fight or something?" Reno asked.

"Slade's not coming after me 'cause he knows I'll go back." Reno noticed a couple of bruises on her midsection. Either she took a fall or someone gave them to her. "I'm sick of going back, though. I'm sick of having to remind him all that he's done for me. Of the control he's given."

"Given?" Reno asked sharply. "Or taken. Of you."

"I have nowhere to go," she pleaded. "I had friends once—real friends. And they hurt me…so I hurt them, only worse. Worse so that now I can never go back to them. I can't stay in the sand forever."

"If they're real friends then they're real friends and they'll forgive you if you ask for it," Reno said, his voice gentle but insisting. The golden sky peaked. The sun was setting.

"I can't show my face in that city without him knowing I'm there. He knows everything—all the time. I'm lucky I made it as far as here. If I go back, I'm dead for running away. If I find the Titans, I'm dead for betraying them. I won't go on by myself anymore. That's _worse_ than being dead."

"Why the cliffs for five hours?" Reno asked. No more joking around. No more games.

"Being alone is worse than being dead," Terra repeated. "_Slade_ is worse than being dead. I'm waiting for the tide. And you might not know this," her blue eyes lighting amber. "But you can't stop me." Sand beneath Reno's feet gathered at her palm and spun around her wrist like a bracelet. "He's taught me _that_ much."

Reno saw now the unhealing wound within this girl's chest—the tortured heart she carried with her. He felt it in him and his playful eyes now held something else—a fire of hope that he reserved for a strange blonde girl that had begun to cry in front of him. There was no _way_ he was going to let this girl walk off a cliff's edge. There was no way he was going to leave her like this.

"You don't see a single ounce of beauty in you, do you, Terra?" Reno asked incredulously. "You don't see a thing worth forgiving. I watched you for half an hour and I knew I was watching a _hero_ stand at the horizon."

"I've betrayed my friends to a _monster_," Terra cried, "I've done terrible things—things no one should ever have to forgive. I've let _him_ do things to me that I can never forget. I've _let him_. I have given away everything I am to evil…just to have someone take my mind off the people I care about. If you knew me, you'd know there was no beauty to see. If you knew me, if you'd seen the things that I've done, and what I've become, and how I used to be, you'd see how ugly I am. How…relieved I am that none of the Titans have to bother about me. How I'd rather drown than have to face them with the truth about us all."

Reno could picture it in his head. An empty face of impossibly blue eyes calmly, neatly stepping off a rock onto a crashing wave. Drowning quietly and sweetly with years of agony swept into the ocean. Then he pictured something else. Terra leaping onto a boulder, an eyebrow arched and eyes focused—her speed slicing the wind as she lunged for confrontation. Aiming straight for the horizon, the crimson sun a checkpoint in her destination.

In the distance, a rolling cloud soared below the setting sun. A storm was coming and the glow burned. Reno's eyes merged with the sun.

"_You _can still be free, Terra."

"Don't _tell_ me that," she choked. "I can't free myself from betraying my friends. I can't free myself from killing my _mother_."

"It's the past that is gone," Reno's voice rose; a sharp passion edging his voice. "Time is ticking and you have earned your way out. You're fifteen years old and you have a _destiny_ to fulfill. You're going to aim for that burning sun while you still can and you're going to show _Slade_ what you are when you crash through Jump City; sailing through the crimson sky—do you _hear me?_"

Thunder rippled in the distance…Terra leaped into the air and crash of a boulder lunged from the Earth. The water grew louder as it rose. Terra levitated precariously, sweat gathering on her forehead. She saw her mother's young face clouded in blood. She saw her body on Slade's. She saw Beast Boy's eyes; stung. She saw gray waves rising.

Reno felt sick. She was three feet above the water. "Don't you _dare_, Terra. _Levitate higher,"_ he shouted through gritted teeth. _"Keep moving_," her knees trembled and the boulder drifted another few feet.

A deep, echoing rumble of thunder rocked the cliffs and the crimson sun had all but hidden itself from the coal-murked clouds. Wind threw back Reno's hair and blew through Terra's t-shirt.

Terra turned to Reno's distant face as rain pelted her body. "They believed in me. They said they always would."

"They were telling the _truth_," Reno said. A gust of wind flew through his over-shirt. Waves lapped.

Terra's eyes flashed with a fiery amber. She rocketed into the air without looking back; soaring, racing for the last bit of visible sun from the cliff's edge, away from the clouds of black—a pure light, orange-red, and blinking.

"Get out of here!" Reno yelled into the sky as the girl flew away on wings of rock. A bubble of laughter escaped from him as he watched. "_Higher! HIGHER!"_

She sailed with a speed of a being with a life-endeavor through the wind and rain and knew with every wave she raced across…

_She was free_.

**XxXxXx**

**Please review.**


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